Phantom Manor: Bride's Revenge (EV)
by Circle of Justice
Summary: [TRADUCTION] I am a student New Yorker and for a survey more than special, I go to Thunder Mesa, old town saddened since 1860. The Manor house Ravenswood contains a secret which I am accidentally going to wake. Jim, a friend, is there to inform me about the evil which presses on me. But is the bride going to take revenge for her lost love ?
1. Chapter 1

Hi everybody ! It's the first time I write a story in english, I did it for spiritwarrior27 who send me a message for this. I hope that it's understandable in spite of my horrible English and that you will like it.

Good reading !

* * *

**Phantom Manor : Bride's Revenge**

* * *

Who told you that ghosts didn't exist ? Certainly not me ! And this story is the pure testimony.

It begins on a winter night when I was walking onto an abandoned city which my father named as Thunder Mesa. It was terribly cold, and seeing that all was deserted, I wanted to knock at a big victorian manor which was on the highest hill. It seemed to be in better bad state, but the weather didn't allow that I verify before knocking.

I brought down my fist on this door which creaked more and more every time that I carried her, but without ever opening. But I felt that I was not alone in this place, what returned a little more terrible places than they were it already. And it is there that I saw this person lifting curtains on a window of the first floor, without coming to open me, and this one seemed dressed in a former holding.

I had understood that my journey had just begun.

* * *

An acquaintance to me had made the trip until Thunder Mesa to give me further information onto this strange manor house. The antique bar had specially been opened, people serving drinks around a small world come to celebrate the reopening of this place.

This acquaintance was Jim. A friend who for a long time had been interested in Thunder Mesa. I knew that he had to know everything on this sorry manor house, and I wanted that he tells it to me more.

He tasted his beer in a terrified way and turned the head to me, waiting that I throw the subject for which he had moved of New York City.

"Then. Yesterday evening, I was in this city, and it was cold. I thus wanted to shelter and when I saw this manor house, I said to myself that he had to have people there inside. But I am absolutely sure to have seen somebody on the first floor."

"You would never have of venture towards this manor house. It is haunted. You maybe awakened the fury of these harmful spirits."

A shiver me browsed all at of a sudden. "You can tell it to me more on these harmful spirits about which you speak ?"

"I came for that, then. Finally. I am going to tell everything you. This manor house belonged to a big fantastically wealthy family of the city, the Ravenswood. Henry, the father, made build this city to show the vast of its wealth. Regrettably, this wealth, he had acquired it only by the mine which we nickname Big Thunder Mountain. An Indian legend says that a bird-thunder would wake up when we would touch his treasure."

"In what does it concern my manor house? There was somebody inside!"

"Yes, and I know his name."

I slightly frowned, having difficulty in following. "You know his name ?"

He shook the head then turned it with difficulty to me, plunging his look into mine. "Henry Ravenswood."

All at once rough, the lights roasted and everything became black, over and above the fact that an immense ice-cold wind entered now the place nevertheless closes. Nobody dared to move. I gave my look through the room and when I saw a shadow such as that of the person that I had seen on the wall, it disappeared and everything became again as before. Jim sighed, looking everywhere around him.

Quivering, under the state of shock, I sat down again on the chair, again facing Jim. "I - I believe that I am more going to deal with the subject."

"Be careful. The spirits of this house could hurt you."

* * *

The following morning, I entered the yard of the manor house, trees of which seemed to have decayed, as tyrannized by spirits. What did not have to be far from the truth.

There was no noise, set apart that of my steps evolving on the ground of pebbles. I moved forward, nevertheless sick with fear, and soon I was in front of this main entrance of which I had seen Henry Ravenswood.

Or rather his spirit.

I opened the door, little by little, hearing my heart to beat through this terrible silence. It was the most horrifying sensation which I had never lived. My right foot touched the parquet of this house of old style, and a big room with a red wallpaper appeared at me. I still moved forward a little more, but I did not manage to close the door, as if it was about a question of life or death there and as if it was the only thing which still reassured me. Finally, with miles efforts, I had made the decision to close the door and to face my fate.

A mirror was placed at the level of a corner of the roof, it held velvet red curtains which were rather dusty, and this one began to shine in red, the main light beginning sizzling.

"Who is there?" Asked I, but who was going to answer me?

An attractive young woman took place in the mirror, ghostly, the face being red as the blood. I moved back, the fear taking all which could again exist, as the portrait disappeared slowly.

"But where I fell ?"

A dark voice already addressed me whereas my hand touched the handle of the main entrance. "Welcome, miss. Thus say I, what you come to make in my cave ?"

"You are a mister Ravenswood ? That falls well, I was going to go away!"

"Not so fast." A snigger. "You think that you can enter like that and leave, unless nothing arrived at you ?"

I trembled now, feeling that the door had just been locked. I tried again and again to force it, but I did not reach there, and a feminine voice began to hum, but this voice came from the mirror.

"Pleases you, I want just to go away! I came there by mistake!"

"You will go nowhere." A spirit seemed just in front of me, in a dark purple holding, with a big hat. But... He had no face. He had a skull instead of a head.

I was blocked against the door and the spirit approached. A door opened at the bottom of the room, a door which I had not openly seen before. At once, instinct for survival, I turned darker in the room, which closed immediately after my entrance. Henry Ravenswood chuckled. Had I make what he wanted ?

Four paintings were exposed. An attractive girl, such as the one that I had seen in the mirror, was represented, always smiling and happy. But in this room, there was neither door nor window. I was blocked just a little.

"You are now in this gallery, which represents the innocence of the youth. Regrettably, things are not still that they seem to be. "Paintings stretched now, or was it me who dreamed ? There were morbid elements which came to cut the good mood and the joy of living of the paintings of origins. "But tell me, walls would stretch or is it your imagination ? The real question for you now is... By where go out ?" He chuckled very hardly, the light beginning to sizzle again. "I am well afraid that you are forced to follow me."

The light goes out completely and one hung just appeared above my head. Half skeleton, half alive. It was Henry, situated at the top of the room, that hung him by chuckling. The voice of this woman rung in the room and rang with such a despair as we would have been almost able to hear her to cry when she sang.

Soon, the light flared up again, and a door opened on a big corridor fills with paintings. I did not dare to go out.

"Let us go, I did not want to frighten you, but move forward I ask you, I have so many things to show you, mortal."


	2. Chapter 2

Hi everyone ! This is the second chapter, I hope that you will like it !

Good reading !

* * *

**Phantom Manor: Bride's Revenge**

* * *

It was about a long corridor, with magnificent paintings hung on walls. Of what I was afraid ? Nobody could hurt me in this big passage. At the bottom of the room, on the wall in the shape of angle, there was a picture. A bride. She concerned that the young woman of the mirror and the morbid paintings. She was alone on the picture, what let think that the marriage which she should have lived had never occurred.

At least, not with the husband. I began more and more to question on this victorian manor house. Was there a danger either these spirits only wanted to show me to the decoration of the manor house ? The question stayed for the moment without answer, while I followed the host, watching these paintings of a great beauty becoming horrific works. Beautiful Mona Lisa of times had been transformed into a mythical creature, with snakes instead of hair, warts height the face, and the greenish skin. It was quite simply hideous to see this art retranscribed so.

Then it was the brave boat into these immense waves which did not succeed in pouring it which became a ghost ship flowing in the sea. Finally, the horse topped with his brave knight, which found to be really two malefic skeletons.

Sometimes, I wondered what had urged me to enter this house.

I arrived now in front of the huge picture of the bride. She seemed happy to pose for this picture, holding a chair of the left hand and a bouquet against her of the right. Her dress was full of lace, what returned a beautiful contrast. But, while I examined this picture which was the most beautiful in itself of the house, a tear of blood flowed on the cheek of the young woman on the picture.

I moved back all at once rough, and I heard the bride to sing within the picture. Had I hallucinations ?

"Do not worry," Calmed at best Henry, "all this is only illusion. I have many things to show you farther in the house."

The fear had still caught me, whereas I looked everywhere around me. "This house frightens me..."

"Satisfy you to move forward as long as you can still..." He still chuckled, but less for a long time. More to frighten that to act.

Without having repeated to me to it, I still followed the way which was in front of me, and I arrived finally in a kind of hall with a main staircase parting in two in front of me. I did not know well for what we expected from me. It is there that my mobile sounded. It was Jim.

"May I take down?" I Asked the interest of the master of the place.

This one sighed for a long time before giving his agreement.

"Lucile? Can I know where you are ?"

"I entered the house about which I spoke to you, I am visiting. Moreover, that scares."

"Go out immediately of this manor house, it is haunted !"

An invisible hand took me the telephone of hands and Henry Ravenswood, rather than it stayed, appeared there just in front of me, putting the telephone in what was of use to him as ear.

"Hello, mortal." He says in an offensive voice for the person to whom he spoke.

"Henry..."

Phantom chuckled even more. "Hold, Jim, what a surprise. May I know how you escaped from the manor house ?"

Nobody answered in the device whereas I looked at Phantom in a wasted way. Then Jim had died ? In the manor house !? This is why he knew it so much ? Why anything not to have told me earlier ?

Henry chuckled again. "I believed that Mélanie had forbidden the exit to whoever. She badly worked."

"It was not Mélanie who was going to prevent me from escaping your claws."

Phantom crushed the telephone of fury. He threw the device destroyed on the ground and disappeared. I was now alone in the manor house.

"Erm... Mister Ravenswood ?" But no answer came. I had said to myself that I thus had the manor house for me alone.

Without further delay one minute, I went up suspiciously the central staircase and left for the left-hand side of this one. I felt attracted by something of the left-hand side and I wanted to know what it was a question.

A small corridor with numerous, very too numerous lights, just like the number of doors, appeared at me. I did not dare to move forward, feeling that something was exactly in approach. I was going to let it come and run away if I was afraid. This is when a light began sizzling then the bride seemed just down, holding a golden candlestick in the left hand and the bouquet of her right.

I would have recognized her between miles, this bride in the air so sad. She stayed in her place, ghostly. We could not even see the bottom of its dress, because this one was translucent. A tear flowed on the cheek, and it removed her immediately.

"What you make there?" Her voice was offensive, I felt good that I bothered her to be present in her house.

"I ? I look, nothing more. It is attractive here." My voice rang false, trembling, I could not stay in place, for fear of making for me above. She moved forward of a chandelier which put itself he to sizzle whereas the other one goes out brutally.

"You have to make nothing here, go you."

"I - I can help you, if you want."

"To help me ?" She seemed surprised. "Help me in what ?" Her voice had become again soft, and the sad face reappeared. Tears still flowed, but this time, she did not pay it attention. She stared at me.

"In what you want, but on a condition. When it will be finished, I would quietly enter my home and you will never return. OK ?"

She lowered the head one second, seeming to think, then she raised a furious face, finally, the face was half furious, half sad, in the first sense of the term. I knew that I had to deal with a spirit, but I was not strangely afraid. She was of a reassuring nature, what had to facilitate its murders, as she put the enemy in confidence.

But had she already killed whoever it is ? I doubted it. But everything was possible, it was all the same a spirit.

She again faced me, and revealed an ax in the hand instead of her candlestick. I had made a mistake on her subject, she seemed really capable of killing. In a way rather barbaric furthermore.

She threw her ax through the corridor and this one touched me as I threw myself on the ground. I did not want to die today. I quickly got up, to begin to run towards staircases, but she took back her ax and threw it to two centimeters of my hand, the ax being now planted in the marble banister.

"Go you, it go you !" She shouted, getting back her sword to throw it again through all the room, and to fail drill again me the head with her. I was rested against a wall, made breathless, the hissing breath, while she began again and again again to throw her ax, tears which she doubtless refused that we see smooth on the cheeks as one goes along.

She did not want to kill somebody, but she saw itself grateful not to show her suffering. I had decided to hide behind a wall, next to the picture on which she was represented. I had no hope that that would calm her, but that she would not come to find me here.

She seemed just in front of me, chuckling with an a little broken voice and psychopath's eyes. "Game over !" She laughs before hurting her ax and stopping it in a centimeter of my skull, eyes were strangely riveted on the painting. I saw again this pain in her that it refused to admit. This pain, I knew her deep, and I wondered even what had been able well to take place so that she suffers from it so much, almost two hundred years later.

* * *

**Thunder Mesa, on 1860:**

Henry did not return there. Mélanie had agreed to leave the manor house after her marriage with it mining, Jim. He who wanted to give up her all the fortune of the family, now the girl dreamed to leave. What had he made to have that ?

Martha was right. Mélanie was not any more the girl whom they knew since she saw it mining. It had to get rid of it, and everything would become again as before.

There, of the window of the first floor of Ravenswood Manor, he watched his daughter blooming in the arms of a flea-ridden person. Martha entered the room, and settled the breakfast on the table of the chamber. It was nice little one wooden table, completed for a lunch for two.

The woman approached him, and put the hand against the shoulder. "It is served, Henry. Let live her a little."

Henry settled down on a pillow on the floor and began to nibble at what Martha had brought. Brioche, milk, and some jams were enough for this type of meal. But Martha seemed more worried than usually.

"Henry. We would have to have the second child to give up to him the manor house."

"I said that it would belong to Mélanie, and it will be it. I am not going to discuss with this child. Either the mining comes to live here with her, or they do not see again each other."

"Henry..."

"No, Martha. We leave her too much freedom, and look where that leads us ! She holds us by the nose, and she has fun with it. But I am not going to allow that." Henry brandishes the small knife which was arranged to spread the jam, and planted it in the small table. Martha jumped and Mélanie entered at this moment there, under the look murderer of the father.

"Dad ?"

"Mélanie, when I say that you will keep this manor house, what you do not understand ?"

The girl did not understand. "But me understands perfectly, only Jim wants -"

"I MAKE FUN of the will of it mining of cheap junk ! You will stay in the manor house," he got up, and advanced on the door, getting ready to leave places, but he turned first of all to both young women, and added. "For ever."

* * *

"Why do you tell me that ?"

The bride sighed. "Because you mentioned wanting to help me. What is needed, it is to find Jim before my father."

"Jim ? But I includes nothing in your thing, there ! Jim is my friend, and I know all the same that he is alive !"

She took slightly her ax, the fury filling again the face. But, she calmed down all of a sudden and left it. "Listen to." She began, explaining the situation. She removed her necklace in the shape of heart of the neck, and just put it in front of me. "Jim died. The one that I look for is a spirit. I look for his body, like that, Leota can restore him life. If he - pleases you, you had mentioned wanting to help me..."

I crossed arms, blowing. She had put me in confidence, but was it a trap ? And if all this was only a dream from which I was going to wake up ?

"It is not the problem, Mélanie Ravenswood, the problem is that I do not dig up body. It is not clean."

"You can well make that for me ?"

A sigh crossed my lips. "And if I learnt that you trap me ?"

"I swear you that I do not trap you. I really need you, miss Lucile."


	3. Chapter 3

**Phantom Manor : Bride's Revenge**

* * *

"You are sure that it is this grave there ?"

"Yes, dig !"

It had been a long time since we looked for the grave about which she spoke all the time in this cursed cemetery and, when finally we had found it, she had spent me a shovel by telling me to dig. I had been reluctant at first but she had assured me that she could not make it herself.

But it made an assommante heat in Thunder Mesa, and to dig in these conditions was suicidal. Had I the choice anyway ? Could I tell her that I gave up in exactly one meter deep to find her beloved and to prove her that Jim is well and truly a "alive" being ? I could not admit defeat in front of the spirit of a bride !

Then, without protesting, but grumbling all the same, I dug in this stiff ground, which was so hard that I could not even remove the shovel from it. I made about-turn and Mélanie raised hands innocently.

"I did not know that that would make that."

"And how we make now ? And why we dig in the fact ? I am certain that it is not inside, is Henry took him, or we make a mistake about grave. Henry would not watch at us making without doing anything to prevent us from it, if it was really there..."

"Try all the same to dig, if he - pleases you, me tells you that he is beneath, and I would not want that my father realizes whom we are here."

Sighing and wiping me with the back of the hand the forehead of its sweat, I resumed this complicated task who was imposed on me, in the sense where if I refused, I was cut in the battle-axe by a bride in tears. What did not too much tempt me...

At the end of what seemed to me to be hours, I touched finally something hard. Mélanie advanced by hearing the noise of the wood against which the shovel banged. It was the grave. A smile soaked its lips whereas she asked me to remove the shovel to bring out the grave of it.

She blew, satisfies apparently. "Congratulations, you found the grave."

"It is this one ?"

The grave did not seem like much, made by a wood which had begun to turn yellow, that had seemed to me strange to bury a man stemming from a rich family, by wedding ring, in this... What we could call a box.

Mélanie seemed really enchanted, although I think of it too easy so that the body of the deceased husband is inside.

"It is on this grave that I cried every day when I still lived. I know that it is this grave."

I did not dare to say. "But... You know, I do not want to hurt you, or worse, to irritate you, but I think that it is too easy. We could not have found him so quickly, that does not stick."

Her look made darker, and the head bent slightly towards the left. I knew that she was angry, and I tried to move back, but shesmiles brutally in a kind way. "What we can know about it before having opened ?"

I spent my hand with tiredness on my face, the sweat flowing again and again. "Well. We are going to say. There is some cold water at your home ?"

"It is cold all the time at my home." She agreed a smile, then put the grave in a cart. "But we cannot return in the manor house. My father would wait for us there."

"While you suggest? It is you the bride after all !" I redid the laces which were of use to horses to pull the cart, which Mélanie and the grave of yellowed wood contained, and squeezed them, in the purpose that the horse skeleton is attached well.

She settled more in the cart, by closing the car door after my entry to the packaging. I sat in front of her, but did not dare to look at her. She still frightened me. It was all the same a spirit. Two days earlier, I shall never be to doubt that I was going to get acquainted with ghosts, or what is more I was going to knock at the door of this haunted manor house. I had found myself to Thunder Mesa for a study of History, and I had embarked on all this general store. I did not know when I was going to return in New York, but I began to be homesick. This countryside style cowboy was a little bit different from the big city.

Mélanie squeezed between the fingers the stalk of a faded flower which she held against her with the bouquet, and gave her look on the wooden grave. "Soon, you will be free to leave, and you will take back your normal life in your real city."

She seemed saddened by saying it, maybe she had become attached to the fact of credit note of the company. But I knew that she said that to reassure me. She did not maybe think of it really, but it was the way to make me hang on myself at the most to what I had. Because faster we would have finished, and faster I can go back home.

It was my main motivation.

* * *

We had finally left to the manor house all the same, but much to our surprise, nobody waited for us there. Nobody. Even not Henry.

Mélanie hurried to take out the grave of the cart and took it in the building, taking me with her in the inmost depths of the manor house. There, there was a crystal ball, situated in the center of a table in levitation, but no person or spirit was there. I looked at everything all around, moving forward a little more to the crystal ball in the center of the room.

"Euh... Madam Leota ?" I turned to Mélanie awaiting an answer. "It is very like that that her name is, right ?"

"Yes, yes." The bride, looking at everything around her then putting her look on the crystal ball agreed. "Call once again, she did not have to hear."

"OK. Madam Leota ?"

There, a head made its appearance in the crystal ball, unless a meter of me. A roaring of fear escaped me, whereas Mélanie's light laughter made vibrate my entrails. This woman was really terrible. Too much maybe so that I trust her.

She advanced, bringing with her the grave hideous and turned yellow by the old age and the wear. "Madam Leota, I would want that you throw a fate of resurrection on the man who is in there, who is other than my husband."

The old woman turned to her and inspected of a sceptical look the grave. "You are sure not to have made a mistake, Miss Ravenswood ?"

"I am sure, I remember myself very well of the location of this grave. I cried there for a long time !"

Madam Leota smiled then threw the fate, the grave opening brutally at the end of the incantation, and while I moved back and while the enjoyment on Mélanie's face already displayed...

* * *

**Thunder Mesa; 1860:**

"You have to stop thinking that to you, Dad ! I love Jim and I shall marry with him !"

"But you will not go out of this manor house !"

For half an hour, father and girl quarrelled, in front of the mother who would already die, of her forty-year-old poor people. She had had an accident, and she was now unable to move with her legs. She was already for a week on this chair of the chamber of Ravenswood, and she watched in the window of the first floor. She sometimes said that she smelt a danger running them above, but Mélanie and Henry told her that she needed to base.

All the servants of the house was afraid of her. Poor man Martha had become crazy, of in his shock on the head during his accident. She had been collided by a cart when she fetched reserves to eat. She had not wanted to send her servants this day, and her kindness had been fatal to her.

Since, Henry spent fewer time in the mine Big Thunder Mountain to stay with her, and Mélanie stayed in the manor house, Martha not wanting that she goes out. We might say that she was crazy, her, her smelt it the danger. The Death. This lunatic ground above the city, and Martha did not stop thinking that that had a report with the mine. She said it and repeated it, but it did not prevent Henry from returning to it as soon as he had a little of spare time.

This Jim, it was a mining of the Big Thunder Mining Company moreover. Mélanie had met him like that, during a conference which gave Henry for his company of the mine. They had looked for a long time, and nobody both had wanted to approach in the first one. It was Martha who had of to move closer to them, inciting Mélanie to go to the first one there, under the inquisitive look of Henry and his permanent judgments. Henry. He said that because Jim was poor, he would necessarily like to get married to Mélanie for the money.

But Henry had not seen all that the poor handicapped person had seen. Martha was persuaded that this marriage was going to work. She had helped Mélanie in the preparations, everything was ready. But Martha always smelt this tension which was lying about on Thunder Mesa, and was afraid. Very afraid. She did not know what would take place, but she smelt that this evening, a decisive bend of the life was going to be took, and that it would be unprecedented. The consequences would be monstrous, although she does not know what they would be exactly. The Death maybe for Mélanie, what would be the drama of the life of the old woman.

There, while two others continued to quarrel, Martha lives that the mine began shining with a strange yellow light, which came exactly from the bottom of the cave from which all drew the gold. She stood up little, looking with fear what announced as a thunderstorm in the sky, then this strange light resulting from the mine.

"Henry..."

This one turned to her, angry. "You do not see that your daughter takes me the head with her histories ?"

"I ?" The future bride, the face wrinkling with the fury exclaimed which took her suddenly. "My histories ? It is you who prevents me from leaving with my beloved -"

"Fell, if he - pleases you." Tempted Martha, but no result pointed out.

"- and it is I who makes histories ? You are really a jerk egocentric person ! It is more about your cash than you worry that for my future !"

"I do not worry about your future, because he will be made here !" Added Henry, whereas Mélanie squeezed fists and went out of the chamber by slamming the door. Martha made a grimace and took Henry's sleeve by the fingertips, pulling it. Henry faced her, and she showed him the monster.

An immense bird who went out of the mine, glittering even more than the sun, but who seemed bad to the city. He rose in the sky, and blinded of his brightness all the city, and an immense earthquake began at the same moment as the bird roaring its anger in the sky. Martha tried to get up, but she fell on the ground. Henry took place so as to raise it, but she prevented him from it, turning to the handsome man.

"Protect Mélanie, do not occupy you of me."

"Martha -"

"Henry, save Mélanie! She is more important than me!"

The man quickly recovered, the bird being in front of the window, looking at him with an unconcealed anger. Henry hurried to leave the room, telling goodbye to his wife, then joining Mélanie, whom he hid in the stretch room, which was good the only one whom we could not reach. He went out of the room, to find Martha at the top, but when he had arrived, the only thing which he discovered was this furious bird, who had indulged to wait for him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Phantom Manor : Bride's Revenge**

* * *

"Well... How to say that I did not see him like that, your husband, but... To each his own..."

She approached the man whom, seen Mélanie's face, she did not have to know. She stopped a few meters away from him, looking at the face of the man.

"Excuse I for asking yourselves this question, but... Who are you ?" Questioned Mélanie, rubbing itself the face of the gloved hand. She knew not at all with whom she had to deal, and Madam Leota smiled. She had known from the beginning, but Mélanie had not listened to her. And she had not listened to me either, when I had told her that it was too easy.  
**  
**She only had herself to blame.

But she seemed really discouraged. So much that that hurt for her. She looked at this man who rested in the grave which she had always considered that of her husband, and here she is in front of the hard truth.

"I have to admit that..." She turned to us. "I don't know what to do anymore... We have that to try to follow my father, he must well know where he is..."

I shook slowly the head before resigning me. "Erm, no, because your father thinks that your husband is my childhood friend."

She was open-mouthed. "What can we make then ? It is obvious that this man is not my husband..."

Madam Leota gave her look on the old man who had just got up, and who rather seemed to be an amateur of bars rather than a future husband. The man did not really understand what arrived at him.

"Hey ! But where I fell ?"

A laughter crossed my lips. "I asked myself the same question when I entered here, it is crazy, not ?" A silence rather long was made, during which the man fixed me with sadness, that Leota stared at a wall, and that Mélanie shook the head by having carrying a hand against her face, seeming really tired.

I clear up the breast, lowering the head. "Well, we continue, forget it."

The man seemed to wake up, looking at Mélanie with interest. "You can tell me why you look for your husband in a grave ? And why it is so cold in this house ?"

Madam Leota laughs slowly. "I leave you, miss Ravenswood, and I really wish you one good luck to support these horrible two mortal to you alone."

"Hey !" I exclaimed. "I am an angel ! Know that I help her without having asked for anything in return in its quest to the husband, there."

Mélanie made me the big eyes and there, Madam Leota missing person. The man stayed stone-faced, waiting for his answers, but at once, the dead bride channel-hopped him to look quite all around and give at me a kind look, for one of the first times, so much that I was not still used there. She took my arm and pulled me outside the room, leaving the man alone.

"And - And we leave him there ?"

She posted a dark smile. "The spirits are going to take care of him." A roaring was listened in the room where from we went out, and Mélanie chuckled before fixing me. "We have to look for my husband now. It is time."

"And how his name is, your husband ?"

Mélanie smiles. "His name is Jim."

"You say... Jim ?"

She stopped. "You think that it's strange ?"

"Not at all !" She had already pointed her ax towards my throat and I raised innocently hands, laughing nervously so that she removes it. She continued to look at me coolly by making it. I relaxed again, but stayed all the same on my guard." It is just that I have a friend who is called Jim, the one about which I spoke to you this morning. It is him whom Henry takes for your husband."

"There is fifteen million Jim on this planet, and fortunately that they are not all my husband."

"Exactly, it is of what I thought. But this story is really terrible ! I see well a fiction above, you see, of the kind: Mélanie Ravenswood, ghost bride, who has to cooperate with human the greatest of the land of the living to find the lost husband, who incidentally was not under her grave. You think of it what ?" I had said that with a lot of enthusiasm, really showing her the project which had germinated in my brown head.

She remained one moment to laugh then moved forward again. "I find that offending."

"Offending ? I am a writer, I have to make books -"

"I know what is a writer, thank you." A sincere smile filled her pale face.

"Certainly, well, I think that you would be an interesting subject. That would make an excellent book."

"That's it..."

"Ah but I assure you ! I would have millions of dollars to sell a similar book !"

She stopped abruptly in the middle of a corridor, putting the hand on my mouth to silence me, looking with concern at everything around her. There was a noise in the same corridor, and she quickly turned to me, not removing the hand for all that. "Hide you, there is somebody who arrives."

I grumbled through the hand, and she removed it and moved forward the face. "I do not laugh, there is really somebody."

I thus hid behind a curtain, whereas Mélanie put himself close by, disappearing in the eyes of the mortal, but certainly no eyes of the other spirits. I looked all the same who had a walk in the corridor, and I saw Jim who moved forward in the corridor smoothly, looking of a candlestick in the hand for the origin of the noise. A smile immediately took a seat on my face, while I went out of my hiding place to face him.

"Hey, Jim ! What you come to make here ?"

"Look, Lucile." He Smiles, putting the hand at the level of his trunk, the candlestick lighting more the scene. "I turn to you the question. I had told you not to approach you this manor house, it is haunted, I did not laugh when I told it to you."

"Certainly, but I am here on visit. I do not manage to take out."

The curtain began moving vaguely as Mélanie had to be behind. I sighed, irritated by all these efforts which were finally vain because of HER.

"You are not alone ?" He questioned, looking at the curtain more clearly, rocking his candlestick more in this direction. "Who is with you ?"

"Erm, nobody, why ? It's nothing, I just have put a kick inside."

He looked more attentively. "No, there is somebody behind."

Mélanie appeared just in front of him to make the air that she was there to frighten us, and Jim fell into the trap, putting itself in front of me and lighting the spirit of its candlestick.

"Jim !"

"Do not move, Lucile, I protect you. Go - Go you! Whoever you are, leave we quiet !"

Mélanie adopted her cruelest voice, as the one that she had had the first time when I had met her, in the same corridor. "Then go out of my manor house."

He moved back, preventing me from the arm from moving forward me. "We leave. But let we go !"

She chuckled, revealing her ax. Behind, I tired out the hand against the head, and she had had to see it because she raised her ax in a more convincing, more killer way.

Jim still moved back, and he stumbled so as to fall on Mélanie, who tried to seem angry in spite of her state of real shock. She seemed trembling, but she kept the ax against the throat of Jim, showing itself cruel, but having no real intention to kill him.

Just to do well to him fear.

I went out back, coming to put me next to the ghost bride. "Mélanie, are you OK ?"

"I -" She trembled, releasing finally her ax on the ground.

I did not dare to speak to her. I wanted that she relaxes, while Jim had just jumped behind, frightened, the trembling legs, having for a moment a scrawny face which went back immediately in human being. He seemed really lost, stepping down along the face and looking in my direction with a surprised expression.

"You - You play with the spirits? I thought of having told you not to approach you it !"

"Jim -"

He pointed the finger in my direction. "You are going to listen to me now ! Take away you of her ! They are dangerous !" He put back the hand normally and fixed me gloomily. "I have take my decision. This evening, we return in New York and you will come to live with me, so that I can watch that you return there never !"

The anger invades the face of the ghost bride who stretched out this time in the real threat its ax towards Jim. This one moved back vaguely, finding itself blocked against a wall, and when the back struck the plane surface, the shadow of the spirit of Henry was just on the wall behind him, chuckling aloud.

Jim withdrew immediately from the wall, frightened by the monster behind him who chuckled even more. Mélanie advanced brutally and threw her ax which got it all wrong in the wall at the level of Phantom, which disappeared assists her which followed.

She blew, resuming her ax and by making her swirl between the fingers. "I rather went out well there." She Smiles, proud of her remarkable work.

A smile filled my face. "Yes, I have to admit that you are rather endowed."

"I begin to become used to it. I had never used this ax before meeting you, usually, I carried it more to frighten."

Jim laughs slowly. "It is true whom you are cunning. I would never have suspected a bride of playing the ax so." He made her a softer look. "Furthermore, you are rather attractive."

"Oh, you think ? It is very kind to you, but I have a husband who waits that I save him."

I presented of the hand Jim to the ghost bride. "He could maybe help us ?"

"He would be willing ?" She seemed very favorable to the proposal.

Jim seemed to reflect a moment, in front of our two hopeful faces, then sighed, overcome. "Well, you won. By where we begin ?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Phantom Manor : Bride's Revenge**

* * *

We were now in the big ballroom, Mélanie rising on the half carbonized walking of staircases, looking for something of the look, but for her did not seem to find it.

I was below, touching the tiered cake which had... A nasty head.

"It is the meal of this evening ?"

She laughs by turning to the cake. "Look, of course yes, cake dating exactly 1860, I am not sure that it is still good."

Worms went out of this cake. I took one between my fingers and brought up it so that Mélanie sees it where from she was. "And that, it is normal ?"

She shrugged. "1860."

Jim looked at the paintings which recovered walls, by seeing a representative the manor house in ancient times. A magnificent manor house of white wood, with shutters of a green color. "It is your manor house as it was before ?"

"Yes, when my father still lived."

Jim began to tremble in spite of him, and looked at the window on the opposite side to justify itself. "I am a little cold, we could not close ?"

A black look went to him from the bride, who a few seconds later, found a smiling face. "Of course !" She closed at once, and the sun going to bed revealed in broad daylight the shadow of Jim, which continued along the wall, which was other than the one of Phantom.

I fixed it now, seeing both orbits of the skeleton in the shadow being illuminated in red. "Jim..."

"Yes ? Ah, I believe that you saw that, yes, it is very beautiful, right ? It is the Phantom ?" He nevertheless seemed to be afraid.

"Henry Ravenswood. Phantom as you say. Mélanie thinks that he infiltrated somewhere to observe us."

This one turned brutally. "I have say that in a loud voice ?" She held her candlestick full hand, lighting a piece of curtain which had grows green in time.

"Not, but I knew it."

She sighed. "You are incorrigible."

Suddenly, whereas Mélanie pursued her searches of I know not what on curtains, Phantom began chuckling, taking out back a column. He held a human corpse against him, and threw it to the ground. Mélanie trembled now, hiding from sound better behind the curtain, while I put myself in front of, looking for Jim who had strangely disappeared upon the arrival of Phantom.

Henry advanced in the room, chuckling in his habit, almost facing me, keeping all the same a certain distance.

"You will never find the husband of Mélanie, abandon your quest, mortal, or I shall see myself grateful to force you to it !"

I squeezed fists, under the singing frightened by Mélanie who always hid behind the curtain. "Well, force I !"

At this moment, as if that was not the answer which he expected, he took his cape between the fingers and threw it in front of him, disappeared when it fell again on the ground.

* * *

**Thunder Mesa, on 1860:**

She was going to celebrate all the same her marriage, in spite of the death of her parents and three quarters of the city the day before. She knew what she wanted, and maintaining that his father had left, she was sure to be able to get married in peace to Jim, the man of her life.

For the moment, she was spoiled to be the most beautiful to evening. Jim should recognize her as soon as he would see her, and should be able to confuse her with nobody else. But how can we confuse his beloved with another lady ? It was quite simply impossible. Mélanie was in the vagueness since the day before, with the loss of her parents and having had no news of Jim, she wondered well why she got ready. In spite of her, she could not refrain from believing that all this was badly going to finish.

"Madam, would you care for that I help you to close your dress ?"

The young woman sighed, putting the elbow lasciviously on the table. "Why do I have to wear a dress ?"

"It is your marriage today, let us see, do not tell me that you forgot !"

"I would have liked... My father did not want that I get married, he is right maybe, not ?"

The old handmaid growled out. "But let us see, of course not, my child, your father was always very reluctant to the poor people, but Martha Ravenswood, your mother, too was stemming from an unprivileged background !"

"I know it... But I smell that to finish things are in a bad way, Madam Leota, I assure you..."

The handmaid burst out before helping her to put on her princess's big dress. She was full of lace, what returned a beautiful contrast with the green bottom, and the old woman called at once one of these painters to represent her, her, so beautiful, maintaining a chair of the left hand and the bouquet of her right.

The picture would be finalized within less than one hour, and Leota hurried to go to install garlands of flowers on tables, and all which went with. She verified that everything was good in the room of the ball, and that everything was good in the kitchen. A joint would be what would suit for this long-awaited marriage.

Mélanie, approximately one hour later, entered with dignity the big room, a cold look settling on all the guests. She quickly took the arm of Leota to entail her farther.

"Leota, I smell not this day at all ! We cannot push away the marriage for tomorrow ?"

"Ha no, no, no, my heart, it is not because you are in the middle of a crisis of stress that these people come four corners of the city are going to restart! To relax you, there will happen nothing."

* * *

The marriage took place all the same finally, and Mélanie waited in front of the staircase that her husband arrives to take her by taking her the hand below. But she waited, again and again, people danced on the crazy music, with masks and dresses all in colors, whereas she waited, there patiently, whereas her husband goes out of the room.

After what seemed to be hours, a funny noise escaped from the roof, and a trapdoor opened of the room of portraits, and the drama fell under the eyes of all, those from the servants, those from the guests, but especially those of Mélanie. This one collapsed on the knees on the ground in front of the discovery of the body hung by her husband. She cried, roaring in the death in front of upset guests, who went all quickly to the food to take place the image. Mélanie, by anger, went to a big room, and returned with an ax.

* * *

_As for the continuation of this story, each has the own version of the facts. Some people say that Mélanie would have only thrown it in walls, but others assure that she killed everybody with it. Diverse versions which end in very different purposes. According to the people confirming that she would have it only thrown in walls, she would have then to look everywhere her husband, in case everything is only a dream, and would have died by accepting the offer of Phantom. According to others, she would have tried to commit suicide but Leota would have her it prevent, declaring her that the spirits of the dead guests had returned and that they wished harm to her._

_I favor none of the two versions, which are for me rather creative. But to you to see if you believe my experience, either the stories of others._

* * *

"Do not tell me that you looked for your husband in a curtain..."

She shook the head. "Not at all ! I looked for that !" She brought out a very former photo of her pocket. "It dates 1926, a man who entered the manor house and who looked for something. He has took this photo, on which represents my husband."

I inspected some look the image. "It is him ?" A brown man, hair rather long when we speak about a man, the rather frail air, and especially, rather handsome boy. "He is not ugly at all, I admire your tastes."

She blew. "Are all the mortal also annoying ?"

"Not, only I. My personality."

She got up from the chair on which she sat, pulling her dress to avoid creasing it, although it is not any more in that, and she resumed the photo, tidying up its in her dress. She got back the ax that she had posed on the side of her seat, and the bouquet. I looked at her, and the bride turned to me, interrogative clause. "Well, what you wait for ? I have a husband to find in a corner of the manor house."

"And what he looks like now ? A skeleton rotted up to the marrow or then he is as you ? More or less protected..."

"Let us say that I know nothing about it -"

"I already imagine -"

"But that I me it against index form." The anger was again visible on the face, whereas in the hand, it squeezed its ax. She threw it through the room, and she touched, but of two even one centimeter, my face, so that that had given me a sacred fright. "Keep silent you maintaining. You are silently going to follow me. We have not ever told you to respect the silence of the deaths ?" She asked, getting back her ax with a smile corrupted by the death.

"But you speak you -"

She threw again her ax, and stopped it as she came straight ahead on my skull unless a millimeter, with a smile of psychology. "Do not play with me, foolish mortal."

* * *

We moved forward silently through the manor house, to enter the Mélanie's personal chamber. I would never have believed to have one day access in my adventure there. She sat down at the level of the mirror in skeleton, and took a phial which was lying about on the ground. "Now, speak I of it you know about this day there."

"What day ?"

"This day." She had said that sadly.

"Ha. Of course. Some people say, from there where from I come, where from you would have killed everybody in your guests." An ax was lacking little my face. "Stop that !"

She chuckled. "I am not a murderess."

"It is not the vision which I have of you, nevertheless, for two hours."

Mélanie turned the head to me, a visible fury in eyes. "You want to die ?"

"Not, no, little for me." A kind smile appeared on my lips. "I am kind now. Then. Let us start again. And know that I do not consider in all these salads, but I says them to you all the same. It is my mother who has me learnt the history of this manor house, whom we called before Ravenswood Manor. Why to have changed ? It is horribly glaucous Phantom Manor."

"I cannot do anything about it. Finally, pursue."

"Yes, naturally. But I was there where ?"

She beat itself the head of the hand. "You are really stupid, but I have the conviction that you make it deliberately."

"Then. Thus, these people think that you would have wanted to poison yourself, but that Madam Leota would have wanted to prevent you from it by coming to say to you that the spirits had returned."

She made turn the phial between the fingers. "But let us see, it is anything."

"And that, what it is ?"

"It is some poison."

I frowned. "Two solutions. Either you laugh at me, or it does not belong to you. Or not for you."

"The second of the second."

"For who is it ?"

She got up, releasing the phial so that it breaks on the ground. "It was for my father. But he died before."

I now took a seat on an armchair which had just advanced on me. "Tell me."

She trembled now, sitting down again to have more stability. "The day of my marriage approached and my father became more and more unbearable. He supported the idea that Jim wanted only the inheritance of my family, and that there was love in there. He had not even tried to know him. He had judged it at once with regard to his social class." She sank more into her seat. "And there was this bird."

"A bird ?"

"Yes, this bird who shone more still than the sun he even ! He went out of the mine, angry, ready to kill, and my father, to whom my mother had miles time repeated that it was dangerous, had returned towards this protected mine. The bird killed all that he could, and Martha Ravenswood, my mother, asked to my father to send to me to the stretch room. The only room which this monster could not reach. And when I had gone out, everything had died. The bodies of my parents in their chamber, carbonized, I was alone. I had even had no news of Jim. I would have better made wait for them..."

"He did not ever come ?"

She sighed, a tear of smooth blood. "He died before."


End file.
